Savaged by Boko Haram

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/01/opinion/savaged-by-boko-haram.html

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The competition for the world’s attention has rarely been as intense as it is today, or at least it often feels that way, with terrorist attacks, the horror of Syria, millions of refugees, the rise of right-wing politicians in Europe and Donald Trump at home, and all the other crises that fill our screens.

Yet there are horrors that by virtue of their sheer scale and evil cannot be forgotten. So it is good that the singer Bono and the United Nations are seeking to draw attention to the havoc still being spread by Boko Haram, the Islamist group that has been savaging northeastern Nigeria for seven years.

Boko Haram is described as the world’s “deadliest terrorist group” in the Global Terrorism Index compiled by the Institute for Economics and Peace, and it operates in one of the world’s most destitute regions. It drew global outrage when it abducted almost 300 schoolgirls in Borno State in 2014 and declared they would be enslaved and married off. About 200 of the girls remain in captivity, but they are a fraction of the untold thousands the group has burned, pillaged, raped, bombed, abducted and slaughtered.

Last year, Boko Haram proclaimed allegiance to the Islamic State, and since then the group appears to have been rent by a power struggle. It has also been driven from some of its strongholds by the Nigerian Army, assisted by Niger, Chad and Cameroon, to which many refugees have fled. But the misery only seems to spread.

Reports from Bono’s organization, the One campaign, and other aid agencies depict a region in terrible straits. Mercy Corps reported in August that about 800,000 people were living in burned-out villages and camps across Borno State. And a Unicef report said the years of conflict had displaced 2.6 million people, including 1.4 million children, and had left 2.2 million more trapped in areas under Boko Haram control. Starvation and disease are rampant. Yet the United Nations office that coordinates humanitarian affairs said that by mid-September it had collected only a quarter of the $739 million it needs for the region.

American military assistance to Nigeria was long hampered by the reputation of the African nation’s army for human rights abuses. But since the election last year of President Muhammadu Buhari, a former general who has vowed to combat corruption, the Obama administration, along with Britain and France, has been more open to assisting in the fight against Boko Haram. But that fight will not be won unless the misery that Boko Haram generates, and on which it feeds, is also alleviated. President Buhari must do far more to combat graft and provide jobs and services in the afflicted regions. And it is critical that countries open their wallets, and that this terrible suffering not be forgotten.